


In The Dark

by RayOfSunshindBoy



Category: Monster High
Genre: Character Study, Dark, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Not Canon Compliant, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:32:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayOfSunshindBoy/pseuds/RayOfSunshindBoy
Summary: A non canon Holt Hyde character study, inspired by TryHardNinja's 'Dance to Forget' FNAF song. Link to it in the notes.





	In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> https://youtu.be/tcHZFgMIyIk  
> The link to TryHardNinja's 'Dance To Forget', which I highly suggest you listen to if you're into that sort of thing. 
> 
> Be warned, this is dark.

Once again, locked into the cold, dark abyss. He could hear some of Jackson's thoughts, in passing, but it was always random and unpredictable. He clung to each of them, repeating them over and over, teasing every scrap of information out of them that he could, breaking them down and analyzing. It kept him somewhat sane, but it was never more than a sentence, a couple words of conversation, and it was always Jackson.

When he got _out,_ it was always glorious. He could _hear,_ he could _see,_ he could _feel._ Blessed, gold sunlight, the breeze on his skin, rock music in the air. At Jackson's house, there was absolutely no music. He was careful to never let the person inside his mind out, so he'd only seen it a few times, before Jackson had gotten careful.  But _here,_ at school or any other place he'd been, it was lively, beautiful and so rich in color and sound and _life._

He would shout and whoop, run around as fast as his legs could carry him, enjoying as much as he could before he was forced back into the painful, blank nothing. Other people hated him, he knew they did, but he chose not to care. He didn't need other people anyway. They were always trying to get him to do stuff, to slow down and _read,_ or do homework, or set up things for a stupid dance in the stupid gym. He didn't want to do manual labor! He never had more than a few hours before he went back to the dark. The longest he'd stayed was 24 hours, and as soon as they shut the music off, he went screaming back into the pit. Besides, how did they expect him to know _how_ to read? He obviously didn't have many life skills, because he was only let out for a few hours every couple months, usually by accident. He was always so thrilled to get out of the blank, dark prison, that he would frolic and be blissfully _happy_ for a few, precious hours. Why would he waste that on stuffing his face in a book, and not outside, enjoying the sunlight? The trees? And yes, even the people, from a distance. People were beautiful, _everything_ was beautiful.

There were lots of things he couldn't enjoy, however. The stillness he'd heard vaguely about, that comes with twilight in a forest. The chirping of the birds, a farm, even ducks in a pond, or quietly watching fish in a tank. But, at the same time, he was afraid of what that stillness would be like. Would it be comforting and warm, or dark and cold? He would most likely never find out. He was okay with that, for the most part.

People called him unreliable, messy, loud, and a lot of other, sometimes nasty, things. Yes, he ate like an animal. How the hell else was he supposed to? Yes, he was messy. He had the coordination of a five year old, which, coincidentally, was his technical age. And yeah, he was loud and unreliable. Noise was his safety net, his savior, the thing that freaking gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. He didn't have that great of a memory, he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, the way he was living was probably unhealthy, and some sort of vicious cycle or another. Who gives a shit? Not him.

He was going to suck all the enjoyment out of the three hours he usually got, four if he was lucky, before the battery on his headphones ran out. He was going to be vocal about it, too. He was going to shriek with glee, bounce up and down, be a chaotic ball of pure energy, before being sucked back into his personal Hell.

Being in that prison was _horrible._ Beyond horrible. It was _nothing._ He was nothing. Just floating in the dark. No body, no light, no sound except for the occasional thought that drifted across for him to cling to. For months on end. Well, he assumed it was months, because it was impossible to tell time. They say solitary confinement makes you go nuts, no matter who you are. Humans are social creatures (we'll get to that in a moment) and without people, our psyches suffer. 

His certainly did. 

He did interact with people when he got out, but that didn't mean they liked each other. They hated him, especially the girls. He was too loud, too flamboyant, too chaotic. They liked Jackson (who almost nobody liked) better.

But, he still pestered and flirted and talked. Because he'd go crazier than he already was if he didn't

Sometimes he'd come down from the high that came with being alive, and realize how fragile his mental state was. It relied on him getting to be free and with _people_ every few months. Even then, he was still half-crazy. He could sing about it in songs nobody understood, scream out his frustration at the world in his singing, but nobody cared. Besides, they didn't want songs about how sometimes he wanted to hang himself, they wanted love and joy and to be told how gorgeous they were. Which he couldn't deny, they were works of art. But they took it for granted. They forsook long walks in the sunshine for arguments about who stole who's boyfriend.

He was fully aware of Jackson, too. He always felt _glad_ that he got forced into the same place the other did, got to feel the pain and suffering. But on his last visit, he heard Frankie describe to Cleo what Jackson had told her he went through during that: nothing. Not the Nothing, the sucking, endless spike of suffering and darkness. He skipped it. He went from hearing the first chords of a rock song to lying on the floor with a headache.

He didn't even suffer.

He _hated_ that. Hated that all the misery and ( _ **let me out let me out let me out)**_ loneliness could just be skipped over by the person who put him through it, no harm, no foul.

And Jackson knew that he was in there, but never let him out. If it could be skipped over, surely there was no harm in giving him an hour, _five minutes, even,_ of a day to just be alive? He'd even gotten Frankie to write a note asking him, but he never followed through. 

If he was more prone to taking out his anger on people (which he wasn't) half the school would be burnt up by now.

He _had_ learned a safe way to let it out, though. He could gather things nobody wanted, mostly from trash bins; paper, cardboard, dead leaves, and burn them in the safety of the woods. He would state at the flames, the leaping, flowing majesty of it, and most of the time he resisted, but sometimes he couldn't help himself and touched it.

It stung, but never injured him. He would put his hand in, and it hurt _badly,_ like the skin was being peeled away from his bones, but he was never burned.

He liked it. All part of the experience, right?

  ** _Locked away again. It couldn't help but wonder when it would snap and finally jump into the school pool, keeping it's head down until it died, peacefully drifting away._**


End file.
